


Sleight

by shadow_of_egypt (Shachaai)



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: AU - Modern Setting, M/M, Stage Magic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-06-23
Updated: 2010-10-12
Packaged: 2017-10-12 15:07:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/126213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shachaai/pseuds/shadow_of_egypt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern AU. Fai’s a conjurer, a performer (magician), and Kurogane falls for his tricks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ninety percent of this story is a lie

**Author's Note:**

> This is weird. Very, _very_ weird, and isn’t intended to make perfect linear sense. This was me just playing around, I think; it was a random idea, and it wrote itself out randomly.

Ninety percent of this story is a lie (including that statistic); I won’t ever repeat that troublesome fact again. I always tell the truth, you see – but as you know I’m a professional, and we’ve all got sparkling images to maintain. An audience always pays for a performance, and the best entertainers always spin some little lies; it’s in the unacknowledged small print, and since all the world’s a stage, I’d say for _everything_ the rule applies. Don’t cast me looks for I’m another performer. I’m politely paying you back what you are due - these flicks and tricks are just another output, and they’re all for the benefit of you. Call it ‘cynicism’ if you will, but if you were me (or just listen well) you might know being lied to is what we call ‘magic,’ dear. Sit back, enjoy the show.

 

#

 

“Can I show you a trick?”

“No.”

“Trick or treat?”

“It’s not October.”

“You know, you’re really no fun.”

 

#

 

It starts in a theatre, or maybe it’s a ballroom, or maybe it’s a club, but there’s music and an audience and a young man with a quicksilver grin. He’s a looker alright and glows all in white, and there’s a heat in his (forget-me-not) eyes that matches the burn of drink in your belly as he slides into the seat next to yours like it’s been his the whole damn night (all your life). His knee knocks yours and his breath’s warm when he leans in; the whisper echoes:

 _‘Pick a card.’_

 

#

 

 **Magician (n.)**

late 14c., from Fr. _magicien_ , from L. _magica_ (see **_magic_** ).

 

#

 

Kurogane is not an easy person to entertain, and his family knows it well. Tomoyo laments of him; Kendappa’s given up on him, and Souma tries every now and then to resolve the problem (him) out of sheer exasperation. His parents are, by rote of being _his parents,_ quite used to him – Kurogane has the sneaking suspicion his mother has written the whole thing off as a ‘phase’ (like the incident with the clowns. Kurogane still strongly dislikes clowns), and his father’s usually too busy teasing him about it to go too far into the issue, though the concern in his gaze from time to time is endearing embarrassing as hell.

For the nonce, they call it being ‘socially uncomfortable,’ _they_ being a semi-polite, amalgamous entity with a dictionary in one hand and its posterior firmly placed on the high-horse of social awareness and respectability.

Kurogane calls it ‘ _leave me alone’_ (especially at three am when anyone with half a brain is happily asleep or smashed out of their minds and partying  and does _not_ want to be called up and asked how their weekend is going and, by the way, would they like to come over for dinner on Thursday? Tomoyo had asked.

“You know,” Kendappa had blithely remarked after ten minutes of being yelled at on the phone, (Kurogane blamed being rudely awoken for the lack of common sense it would have required to slam the phone down on her the moment he’d finished his tirade,) “if you just added an ‘-itis’ onto the end of that title, Kurogane, you could pass it off as a disease. It’s probably infectious.”).

Kurogane’s a downright _awful_ person to entertain – and he knows it. Doesn’t really go out of his way to amend it, either, which is precisely why, on the night of his twenty-third birthday he’s sitting in a club and avoiding his own ‘surprise’ party, having figured out one was being thrown for him the week beforehand. (He’s a bright boy, and he’s remembered to switch off his phone.) He’ll be damned if anyone’s going to try and _make_ him have fun.

There’s more dancing than drinking going on in the place for a change and the bar’s not terribly crowded – at least this one, anyway, tucked away at the back of the club, a walk from the dance floor. Kurogane downs beer – it’s not terribly good, but not just plain terrible either, and it makes the raucous group clustered a metre or so away down the bar length vaguely tolerable as they egg on whatever it is the bartender’s doing for show. There’s cheering, and laughter, and suddenly one of the group disappears to the toilet, and Kurogane’s got a view.

It’s a familiar thimblerig trick – three metal shot glasses are upside down on the table, and the bartender’s shifting them about pretty quickly, a young woman leaning over to try and guess which one a small ping-pong ball’s hidden under when he’s done. She fails – three times she fails so she buys the bartender three drinks and tries to wrangle out his number too, but her friend’s already slipped into her place and is challenging the man to slip the ball by her as well. He does so – once, twice, thrice -, and she buys three drinks in the space it takes Kurogane to finish the last of his beer, mildly interested despite himself. The bartender is good, very good, but Kurogane knows he’s better.

He says as much when he strides into the group, and asks for another drink. A few of the boys around him scoff but the others look interested, gazes flicking back between Kurogane and the bartender, who’s taken the man’s empty bottle and is already looking thoughtfully across at the challenger.

“…Alright,” he says eventually, and sets the bottle down, leaning back in with a slowly growing smile. His attitude is as devil-may-care as the wisps of golden blond that fall into his eyes, and his accent is curled enough for interest, “but it’s the same challenge as the others - if you beat me, I’ll buy your next drink.”

“And if I lose?” Kurogane prompts.

“Nothing at all,” the bartender replies, “since I like your daring.” He raises his hands overdramatically and shrugs when some of their audience look like they’re going to speak, cutting them all off with his grin. “I’m feeling charitable.” That, and he’d already won enough drinks already to see him into the next week and beyond.

“Fine,” Kurogane agrees, and takes the seat before the shot-glasses, watching as his opponent slides the ball under one before quickly shuffling the whole lot around. He has long fingers, pale as the rest of him, and Kurogane’s blurred reflection looks back at him from the glasses’ surfaces between their spread.

He’s smiling when his hands stopped moving, a mildly irritating close-eyed expression. “There you go.”

Unerringly, Kurogane points to the shot glass on his right. “That one.”

“Don’t waste your guess.” One of the girls behind him starts. “The ball’s in the mid-”

“No,” Kurogane cuts her off. She snaps her mouth closed, disgruntled.

The bartender only continues to look amused, glancing at Kurogane. “You’re sure?” Kurogane nods, so he lifts the shot-glass – as Kurogane had expected, the ping-pong ball is beneath. The group behind break into chatter. “It looks like I owe you a drink. Same beer again?”

“Pass me one of the singles you’ve got,” Kurogane motions to the little line of drinks the bartender’s accumulated over the night, mostly ignored. “Or a double, if you’ve got one.”

“My hard-won alcohol,” the blond laments as he hands over one of the glasses, full of what looks like orange. Kurogane smells it before he raises it to drink – double vodka and fresh orange, none of the fizzy crap. The spirit hits the back of his throat the way the beer failed to do. “I feel I should demand a rematch; nobody else has beaten me all week, not even with a fluke.”

“They weren’t me.” The bartender’s grinning again – he’s young (probably), tall and slim and a nice figure in the club’s black uniform. “Sure, I’ll go again.” It isn’t like Kurogane has anything else to do.

“ _Saa,_ there’s that daring again.” Another smile, and the man’s leaning closer. “But _ah,_ you’re not a pity-case anymore; if you lose this time you have to buy _me_ a drink. No – _two,_ since you’ve ran off with one of mine already.”

“And _when_ I beat you this time,” Kurogane retorts, “you’re giving me another two of your doubles.” The vodka mixer isn’t going to last him much longer. “You’ve plenty of alcohol to lose.”

His opponent laughs, a low, throaty sound, and pops the ball under a shot glass again. Kurogane continues to sip his drink as the glasses are moved before him, watching closely. There’s a few more shuffles and switches than the time before – maybe Kurogane _had_ put a dent in the trickster’s pride.

The blond stops again, steps back, and fixes Kurogane with a raised eyebrow – challenge number two. “Well?”

Kurogane gives him the amount of time to feel safe as it takes him to finish downing the last of his mixer, setting the empty glass back on the countertop. The group around them are still watching avidly. “It’s in the one on my left.”

“This one?” One finger is lightly laid on the shot glass top – when Kurogane nods the bartender lifts it, and the group jostling to see break into clapping and whistling when the ping-pong ball is revealed once again, noisy even over the club music.

Kurogane can’t help the surge of smugness that goes through him when another two drinks are put down for his win, the bartender actually looking vaguely put-out to be caught out a second time. Kurogane takes one and their fingers brush, tips still cold from clutching the chilled glasses. He looks up – the bartender has eyes that are so _very_ blue.

“Third time’s the charm,” the blond coaxes, and he’s leaning all the way in by that point, elbows comfortably on the counter. If anybody were behind him, they’d get a spectacular view of his ass. “One last go?”

“Again?” Kurogane asks, and stares the man down, uncaring for the fact the other is in his space. The hangers-on are motioning encouragement, but there’s persistence, and there’s taking advantage of a fool. He motions to his new mixers. “If you want me drunk enough to even fumble, you’re going to have to give me time to go through about ten more of these.”

“That wouldn’t be fair at all...” the other chides. “I’d get scolded for taking advantage of my poor unsuspecting patrons!” Kurogane wonders, for a second, about how similar their trains of thought are, before the blond leans in once _again_ and Kurogane can feel warm breath against his ear, a stage-whisper. “Let’s up the stakes again.”

“And what good will that do?” Kurogane queries, not seeing how it would help the other deceive him.

“Incentive!” The bartender chirps and pulls swiftly back, before turning around and going to the back of the bar. He bends down to one of the low fridges there he _did_ have a spectacular ass and withdraws two _large_ bottles, returning to thunk them down on the countertop, still damp with condensation. “If you beat me this time I’ll buy you those ten drinks you so need – these two bottles, to take home yourself.”

Kurogane – naturally – is suspicious. The bottles would come directly out of the blond’s paycheque – the mixers he’d been winning off of the bartender insofar are already bought and paid for by other people. “And if I lose?”

“If you lose,” his opponent replies cheerfully, “we exchange numbers and you take me out on a date.” There’s laughter at the comment, and more than one wolf-whistle. The trickster’s also a shameless flirt.

“And if I’m already dating someone?”

“Then you buy _me_ these bottles so I can go console myself, and we exchange numbers in case you ever break up with your dearly beloved.” More laughter, and the bartender picks up the ping-pong ball, tossing it into the air and catching it again. “Not that I think you’ve _got_ one, seeing how you’re all on your lonesome tonight, and you haven’t checked your phone once.” Up, down, the ball glows in the dim. “Doesn’t your dubious sweetheart ever give you a call?”

Kurogane frowns. “I’m not losing.”

The blond heaves a sigh for the crowd (where had everyone come from? There’s at least twice as many people watching as there were before), and puts down the ball. “I’ve been dumped.”

“We’re not dating!”

“Semantics,” a finger waggle.

Kurogane growls. “Just hide the goddamn ball.”

There’s laughter from the blond but he does as he’s bid, nudging the ping-pong ball under the middle shot glass and covering it up. He shifts and mixes the glasses around – fast, faster than either of the two tries before, and there’s an idiot in the background making a dumb ‘ _ooo’_ noise that Kurogane wants to hit them for. It’s off-putting, like the music’s beat, and the few lights glint off of the metal glasses distractingly in red, blue, green. There’re more twists and the bartender seems absorbed in his task, eyes set down on the movement of his hands and Kurogane realises hastily that he needs to stop half-looking at the other male’s face because he’s only half-aware of where the ball is and –

“There,” the bartender stills and the crowd hushes – shouldn’t the lot of them be off dancing? _Somewhere else?_ Kurogane dislikes being made the entertainment, but the bartender’s grin’s a challenge, and the three upended shot glasses gleam in mockery.

He’s not as sure of himself around damn the blond, but he’s still _pretty_ sure (and that’s good for someone with his track record for noticing the little things like he does). So he points to the left shot glass again, and bares his teeth when the idiot opposite him the ‘the’ is now appropriate asks him if he’s sure for this last time.

“I’m _sure_.”

“Alright then, Mr. Grumpy,” the blond softly rebukes him, and picks up the glass. No ball sits beneath, and the crowd behind lets out a collective breath, before applauding the bartender. Through their din, the ‘winner’ leans in, this last time, slanting a glance from under fine lashes. “So, do I get your number, or will your sweetheart object?”

His ego’s stinging but Kurogane fishes out his mobile phone, handing it over to the other man, whose face flashes pleased surprise for a second before he takes it. (A bet’s a bet.)

“…It’s not switched on.”

Kurogane had forgotten. He takes it back and thumbs the power, hastily putting the thing on silent as soon as he unlocks it. The ‘missed calls’ sign still flashes up at him obnoxiously though; his date-to-be, taking the phone back, can quite easily see the little symbol flashing telling him he has new messages as well.

“ _Someone’s_ popular.”

“Just -”

“Put in my number, yes, yes.” The man fiddles with the phone for a few seconds before holding it at arm’s length, smiling into the flash that followed before bringing it back to tap the keys a few more times. When he tosses it back over Kurogane can see the other’s picture splashed across the screen, name and number beneath. The name is written first in the roman characters, and then katakana.

“…Fai?” Kurogane sounds, and is rewarded with a smile and a nod. It’s distracted though; since the show is done people have decided that they want to drink again, and the bartender – _Fai –_ is called upon to do his job.

“Call me?” He requests, ignoring the crowd for one minute more. “I can’t answer now, but it’ll save the number for later.”

Fai disappears to attend to the patrons and Kurogane hovers over the number on his screen, debating. It’d be easy to delete – just as easy to call it, though, leave his number with Fai, and go on the date he’d lost to the other. It serves him right for not giving the game his full attention, though it’s still pretty infuriating to be outwitted.

Kurogane sighs, and calls the number, quickly switching his phone off again after letting it ring three times on the other end. He doesn’t care to read the texts left for him by his dear family haranguing him for going off the radar for the night; finishing his neglected mixers seems a better idea, and slipping away from the bar and out of the club before Fai can return to make him regret his honour in going through with the forfeit.

 

#

 

 **Magic (n.)**

Late 14c., "art of influencing events and producing marvels," from O.Fr. _magique_ , from L. _magice_ "sorcery, magic," from Gk. _magike_ (presumably with _tekhne_ "art"), fem. of _magikos_ "magical," from _magos_ "one of the members of the learned and priestly class," from O.Pers. _magush_ , possibly from PIE _*magh-_ "to be able, to have power".

 

#

 

The phone rings the next day. The phone _doesn’t_ ring the next day. Neither time you pick up. (Nuh-uh.) The phone rings at four am on Friday morning and you’ve got to get up for work later and you think it’s your alarm clock or heaven’s trumpet or just _some damn bird_ and it could be one, two or all three of the above, but your brain’s not with you (as ever) and you answer it to hear noise, music, _chirping_ in your ear.

It’s mercury and moonlight and an invite to the ball, a theatre, a street-party, a parade (let’s go dancing – dance with _me)!_

 

#

 

(If you dance with anyone else I shan’t like you anymore.)

 

#

 

“Idiot, that is _not_ what happened.”

“It really, really is!”

“It really, really _isn’t.”_

“This thing you have trouble with sometimes, Kuro-puu – the real world calls it ‘denial.’”

“You made that up from beginning to end!”

 _“Denial.”_

 

#

 

 _Dear Sir or Madam,_

 _You are cordially invited to attend my show._

 

#

 

“If I’m going to have a ‘lovely assistant,’” Fai tells him later, “they may as well be cute.”

Kurogane’s still growling of course; being dragged up on a stage and forced to help with tricks has never been his idea of fun – but the children in the audience in the loved it, and even the adults had started laughing when Kurogane had exploded when Fai – silver Fai – had started bastardising his name. He never should have given the other that call.

“So you’re a stage magician.”

“Mm,” Fai hums under his breath, tidying up his room backstage – it’s a colourful mess of glitter and flowers and brightly-coloured cloth. “That’s one name for it, Kuro-kun.”

 _“Kurogane.”_

“Stay here,” Fai tells him, and sweeps carelessly out of the room. He’s not gone long – he returns supporting a white rabbit in his arms, the little creature’s paws hanging comfortably over his right arm, his left hand supporting her back legs and tail. He’d lifted her out of a hat before, at the request of a little girl. “This is Mokona-chan,” Fai hands the little creature over into Kurogane’s arms, adjusting the taller man’s grip. “Isn’t she gorgeous?”

‘Mokona-chan’ is already leaving fur all over Kurogane’s black shirt. Kurogane _looks_ at Fai, deadpan, and Fai only laughs. Idiot.

“I usually do street-work,” he confesses, “but they asked for me here so I came.”

“So the night at the club?”

“That?” Fai’s smiling as he reaches out to take Mokona back, cuddling the rabbit close as Kurogane starts trying to pick fur off of his clothes. “That was only temporary – a favour for a friend for a week. Or maybe she was doing the favour for me…” He frowns, thinking for a few moments. “You know, you can never really tell with Yuuko-san; I think I’ll probably owe her a drink.”

The fur sticks to Kurogane’s hands instead. Damn rabbit. “For someone who only worked in a bar for a week, your conversation revolves around alcohol quite a lot.”

“Oh, alcohol’s wonderful wherever you work,” Fai parries, and the light catches his throat where his collar’s open, dipping down to pool in his collarbone, golden-cream against the snow white of his shirt. “I believe that some of the most profound moments of lucidity are produced when you’re completely and totally drunk. Right about that point where you feel like you’ve almost drunk yourself sober again. It’s a glorious feeling.”

“That would be the point of sobriety where you realise you’re going to have a god-awful hangover in the morning?” Kurogane watches as Mokona gets set down on a nearby dresser – the rabbit immediately hops over to a nearby paper leaflet and starts munching the corner.

Fai beams, and takes a seat on a nearby chair, body cushioned from the padding by a string of coloured handkerchiefs that trail onto the floor. “There exactly~! But, as everybody knows, it’s _getting_ to that point that’s really all the fun.” He leans back, legs crossed, and his smile slants to something a lot more interesting for the duration of their ‘date.’ “I’m in it for the ride.”

 

#

 

 _Once upon a time there was a great and powerful wizard who lived at the top of a tall white tower. He did all the usual wizarding sort of things you’d expect wizards to do, but he got bored of it all one day and decided to go explore somewhere else._

(He exploded the tower by accident, and had to relocate during the repairs.)

 _On those great and wonderful explorations he met a knight – a black knight, if you will – with a great sword and a greater temper. They got along wonderfully_

(The knight tried to kill the wizard within their first twenty minutes of knowing one another.)

 _and went off to together to rescue damsels in distress, slay dragons and occasionally save the odd poor cat that got stuck up a tree. It was a good, simple life, and the two would sit together by the fire in the evenings and toast each others’ good health_

(They got drunk on more occasions than either of them could remember, and ended up crashing in a tangled mess together on the floor. The knight snored.)

 _and the hopes of the continuance of all their wholesome_

(Decadent.)

 _adventures._

 _The wizard never returned to his tower._

(He did, however, end up inhabiting the knight’s bed.)

 

#

 

They’re interrupted by a phone call – Tomoyo, with a sigh in her voice she still hasn’t forgotten him skipping out on his party, and he’s pleased to note that none of them can prove yet that he missed it on purpose and a query: what kind of person takes the keys to their car out with them when they’re not planning to drive? Souma needs to borrow it – desperately -, so he’d better get ho- no, he could walk to hers.

“You broke into my house to look for my car keys?” Kurogane asks, and Fai glances up from where he’s swirling the ice-cubes in his drink with one finger, expression clearly showing that he’s amused.

“I didn’t break anything, Kurogane; I have spare keys.” Tomoyo is precociously unrepentant, and merely repeats her command for him to get to Souma’s _tout de suite._

So much for a quiet drink.

Fai sighs melodramatically when Kurogane ends the call with a face like thunder, raises his finger and licks it delicately free of his drink of choice it’s alcoholic, it sparkles and it’s _blue_ , and Kurogane doesn’t care to know any more, only watching as Kurogane downs his own – sake, good stuff. “You’re off?” He sounds regretful.

“Yeah,” Kurogane grunts, and is already standing to pull on his jacket. There’s _still_ some rabbit fluff on the lining. And because he thinks it’s sort-of due: “Sorry.”

“You have my number,” Fai says, and stands for an instant when Kurogane is still half-bent over, so their mouths meet quickly before drawing apart. He smells of blueberries and vodka, and the kiss leaves sugar on Kurogane’s lips. “I’m here until Tuesday.”

 

#

 

 _I’m a Gemini, blood type AB, and was born in California. Fai hands out the information with a close-eyed smile, and swings one leg on his stool. I like a lot of things, but I seem to be drawn to those in particular that are tall, dark and strong. And you, Kuro-tan?_

 _Kurogane ponders him for a second. You made all that up._

 _Fai opens his eyes. Even the last bit?_

 _Kurogane looks aside; Fai smiles, since his ears are going red, and it’s rather sweet. Kurogane mutters, most of it under his breath. …Maybe not the last bit._

 

#

 

((I told you this yesterday: The Very Best Things Are Hidden In Plain Sight.))

(Did we capitalise that right?)

((Probably not.))

 

#

 

Tuesday comes and Tuesday goes and you don’t lift a finger until Wednesday, when you decide to delete the number from your phone and forget about the whole thing (we call it regret). He was _such_ a pretty boy and you really liked his smile – or maybe it’s Sunday still and you’re dreaming about it, wiping out the name and the picture because you’ve never quite dealt with his type insanity before (but insanity in general, yes), and _god,_ you can still taste his kiss even though you’ve never been all that particularly fond of blueberries, strawberries, honey and cream. It’s a kick in the gut to be faced with the facts, so if we’re going to have history, it’s going to be multi-choice. Problem is (sugar) that there’s only two options this time around - it’s a horrible trick. 

 

#

 

 **Theatre**

(US **theater** )

  • **noun** **1** a building in which plays and other dramatic performances are given. **2** the writing and production of plays. **3** a play or other activity considered in terms of its dramatic quality. **4** (also **lecture theatre** ) a room for lectures with seats in tiers. **5** Brit. an operating theatre. **6** the area in which something happens: _a theatre of war._

 

#

 

Kurogane phones Fai on Sunday night, but only gets through to the idiot’s voicemail. He leaves a message then endlessly awkward, and Fai texts him on Monday afternoon, and leaves him an address, and a time – seven o’ clock. Kurogane gets the text at work and looks up the address on the internet – his workmates tease him when he suddenly flushes bright red, though none of them know what exactly has caused such a tremendous blush.

(“Maybe it’s his _girlfriend,”_ one of them teases, and the rest take up the tune. “Did she send you raunchy pictures?”

Kurogane scowls, and hides his phone.)

The address is for a hotel.

Kurogane turns up a little after seven that night to find Fai waiting for him outside, the blond cheerfully – blandly – smiling up at the evening sky. He’s dressed semi-formally in a dress-shirt, jacket and pants, but he’s left the collar at his throat open and used a ribbon to pull back his gold hair.

“Oi,” Kurogane pulls the idiot out of his daydreams with his customary greeting.

Fai smile lights up all the more when his gaze drops down to meet the other male’s, and he trips forward ugh, it’s more like a _prance_ and limpets onto Kurogane’s right arm. “Kuro-pon!” He’s warm, and smells like apples. (What _is_ it with this idiot and fruit?) Kurogane tries to immediately shake him off.

“Kuro _gane,”_ he corrects, but Fai only grins – all teeth -, and he knows inwardly it’s a lost cause. As is his arm, by the looks of it; for someone who looks like a light breeze can blow him over, Fai has a grip like steel. Kurogane looks at the hotel – it’s a decent one, but nothing fancy. “Why did we meet here?”

“It’s where I stay when I’m in town,” Fai replies, and starts tugging him down the street. “They leave me chocolate mints on my pillow.”

“Tell me you didn’t choose to stay there solely for that.”

“All right then,” a sparkle, and Kurogane is willingly tugged, “I didn’t choose to stay there solely for that.” Fai _did,_ didn’t he. “We’re going for dinner, and after that is up to you. Kuro-sama, do you like Italian?”

‘After that’ is an exceedingly distracting thing to bring up with another question straight after it, especially coupled with Fai pressing not-so-subtly against Kurogane’s side.

“It’s fine,” Kurogane assents and Fai all but whoops, and sings a ‘pasta song’ all the way to the restaurant while passers-by stop and stare. Kurogane’s red and trying to kill the idiot by that point, but Fai only laughs and ducks under the punch swung at his head, brightly bounding into the building ahead of him to tell the maître d' about their reservation.  

The woman initially doesn’t look too pleased about having them in – Kurogane had come through the doors _swearing,_ and the other patrons look put-out -, but Fai scolds his date thoroughly and Kurogane quiets down reluctantly and sweet-talks the lady, and they’re shown to their seat.

Kurogane looks incredulous as the menus are handed towards them – the maître d' had gone from looking like she wanted to throw them out to be quite obviously sweet on Fai, so Fai steeples his fingers together and rests his chin on them, smiling across the table as soon as she’s gone.

“Kuro-chii’s not used to things going his way?”

Kurogane looks down at his menu, and tries to decide what to eat. “…How did you do that?”

“Well…partly,” Fai begins with a tease as Kurogane scans the ‘pizza’ section, “it’s because I don’t have a grumpy face.”

“I do _not_ ha-!”

“But _mostly,”_ the magician cuts in, and there’s a red rose in his fingertips that he’s suddenly shoving in Kurogane’s face. One petal tickles the man’s nose, and looking past the flower Kurogane can see Fai’s half-lowered eyes, and that ever-slanting grin. Where the _hell_ had he pulled the rose from? “It’s because I’m a charmer.”

“You’re an idiot.” Kurogane says flatly, and swats away the hand that tries to tuck the flower behind his ear.

“But I’m a _charming_ idiot,” Fai skips on, and puts the flower beside Kurogane’s glass instead.

 

#

 

 _It’s magic, you knoooow~, never believe it’s not so –_

 _Kurogane glares, and elbows the singing man beside him in the ribs. Do you never shut up?_

 _You don’t like my singing? Fai pouts, and stretches his hands up to the starry sky. Spoilsport._

 

#

 

Kurogane takes the rose with him when they leave.

 

#

 

 _Dear Diary,_

 _Today ‘kaa-san and ‘tou-san let me stay up really late, and we went for a proper dinner in the city before we came back to go to bed. IT WAS REALLY COOL. It was really, really dark out and all the lights were on, and ‘kaa-san let me have the grown-up menu._

 _We had to wait a bit before we could get the lift back to our hotel room, ‘tho. Well, we got the lift, but we got off at the wrong floor by accident because ‘tou-san INSISTED it was the right one (it wasn’t and ‘kaa-san said so, but ‘tou-san made us and got grumpy when we were right – he drank too much and got silly, I think, and I told ‘kaa-san, but she shushed me after that, which ISN’T FAIR). So there._

 _  
ANYWAY.    
_   
_We had to wait for the lift again while ‘tou-san was grumbling, but when it came back up again ‘kaa-san wouldn’t let us get in. I’m not sure why. There were only two men there so there was plenty of room, and they were hugging real close it looked like they were hugging, but ‘kaa-san shooed me to the side so I couldn’t see so there was plenty of room. So we missed the lift. AGAIN. And ‘tou-san grumbled more._

 _Parents are silly._

 

#

 

You kiss him in the lift while pinning him to the wall and he’s hot (star bright) and the mirrored walls are cool against your hand. He moans, arches against you and drags his nails up your spine, and you’re aching (all over) and can _taste_ how much he wants you there, just _there._

You both ride the lift up to his floor, and neither of you touch each other for the whole trip. He glances at you from under his lashes (we’ll play coy) and there’s a promise there, but the lift stops at all the floors and you have to be modest.

Even _you_ know which option is the most fun.

 

#

 

Their mouths are kiss-bruised when they stumble out of the lift, still breathless, but even Kurogane can feel his lips quirked upwards, and he’s playful enough of course he’ll _deny_ it to try and distract Fai as the blond is opening his hotel door.

Fai fumbles but emerges triumphant, and they all but _fall_ into his room when the door opens due to Kurogane having decided to use the other as a prop to lean on while molesting in the hallway. The hallway’s empty, anyway. There’s no-one to be scarred.

Inside, Kurogane takes in the furniture with a glance, and raises an eyebrow as he closes the door and locks it behind him. “Double bed?” he asks evenly, and watches Fai’s back as the blond goes further into the room.

Fai only shrugs off his jacket, and leaves it crumpled on a chair. “I like to sprawl.” There are bags on the floor – Fai, it seems, isn’t one for unpacking – and Kurogane manoeuvres around them when Fai walks across to sit on that bed, lean back, and _smile._ “I’m spoiled.”

Kurogane agrees – but that doesn’t stop him from crouching over the other, his hand pressing into the mattress as Fai falls back against the top sheet, and trying to kiss away the smug _knowing_ he can see fluttered his way, scraps in the breeze beside self-restraint. Fai rolls them over swiftly and sits atop him but Kurogane can’t complain; the slim hands he’d noted admired on that first night on the club are shoved impatiently up his shirt, splayed and warm across his stomach and Fai’s tongue is in his mouth tasting him anew.

He draws hands down the bumps in Fai’s still-shirted spine and Fai makes a noise in the back of his throat, something like a moan and something like a purr that’s coupled with Kurogane’s groan; Fai’s sitting deliberately low on Kurogane’s hips and oh _god,_ does it feel good when he rocks forward like that.

“Admit I’m charming yet, Kuro-sama?” They part, back to being breathless again, and Fai’s breath fans out hot against Kurogane’s neck, his fingers part-clenched in the sheets beside Kurogane’s head.

Kurogane lets his head flop back further, draws air into his lungs, and digs in his (proverbial) heels. “Not on your life, idiot.”

Fai laughs, lower than usual, husky, and Kurogane finds it gratifying to feel the reason burning hot and hard against his stomach, so he reaches up with one hand to undo the ribbon in the magician’s hair, and lets the gold feather out around Fai’s prettily flushed face.

“Kuro-ti,” Fai scolds, and slides one hand down to thumb the buttons of the other’s shirt, “you’re so _stubborn.”_ Kurogane pushes himself up onto his elbows as the other’s fingers work swiftly down his front, Fai undoing the buttons neatly and shoving the cloth unceremoniously down Kurogane’s arms, looping his own arms around Kurogane’s neck with self-assurance when his task is done. “I bet you were the grumpiest of them all when you first began courting – you were the type who was mean to the girl he liked, weren’t you?”

“Will you _shut it_ with calling me grumpy?!” Kurogane grouches but his irritation’s getting exceedingly hard to keep track of; Fai has a hand at his nape and fingers are tugging – lightly, but enough – at his hair there for him to tilt his head back, feel teeth scrape the soft skin of his throat in another life, Fai’s a vampire and send a sudden shudder through his frame.

“ _Really_ mean,” Fai decides in a murmur, and his free hand trails down Kurogane’s bare chest, slides lower still and slips inside the other’s pants. Kurogane chokes on air when Fai strokes him, smoothing a thumb over his erection’s head. “You probably gave her some horrible names.”

“No,” he manages to get out, and his brain’s temporarily disconnected itself from his mouth and lodged itself in his underwear, “my mother would’ve grounded me.”

A beat.

Fai starts laughing.

Cheeks red, Kurogane shoves him off, the blond flopping onto the bed beside him still laughing, still _laughing._ Picking up a pillow and hitting him with it doesn’t seem to stop it at all – Fai offers a weak defence, but he’s still cackling between the blows to his torso and head, playfully swatting back to not get a face full of cloth.

Kurogane’s mortified, and Fai ducks under the pillow once more to cheerfully poke one red cheek. “Kuro-myu is blushing~.”

Kurogane glares, and holds the pillow at the ready. “I _will_ smother you with this.”

 _“Ah,”_ Fai says, still chuckling and for a minute his eyes are soft and it looks like he’s going to say something _incredibly_ weird to Kurogane, especially when they’ve only known each other a week. There’s no such thing as ‘love at first sight.’ But Fai doesn’t. “Kuro-don is _adorable_ when he’s embarrassed.”

“I am _not_ adorable.” Kurogane’s scowling – and confused - when Fai suddenly slips off of the bed, padding over to one of the bags lying about the floor and rifling about in it.

“You _are,”_ Fai all but croons, so Kurogane chucks the pillow at him. Fai ducks, and it very anticlimactically hits the wall behind him instead. “When you’re embarrassed it’s like your grumpy face, only ten times _cuter -”_ Kurogane growls, and Fai beams at him, “Kuro-wan-wan.”

Kurogane chucks the other pillow on the bed at him as well.

Fai pouts at him, having ducked again. He stands upright straight afterwards, with a small box in his hands. “Kuro-wankoro, whatever did the poor wall do to you for you to abuse it so?”

 _“Stop ducking and you’ll find out.”_

“I really don’t want to come between you and Wall-san if you’re having relationship difficulties -”

Kurogane folds his arms. And _grouches._ “I’d get more response from the damn wall than you.”

 _“Saa?”_ Fai scoops up the abused pillows and meanders back to the bed, dumping them and his box down on the mattress before kneeling and taking Kurogane’s jaw between gentle hands. “Kuro-chan makes that sound like a challenge.”

Kurogane stares at him. “Even _you_ can’t turn this into a competition with a wall.”

“Of course not,” Fai agrees, and for one brief delusional instant Kurogane thinks that the idiot’s seen sense, even as Fai’s mouth is drifting down Kurogane’s shoulder, Fai’s fingers lightly circling the nipples on his chest. “It’s obvious Kuro-low has already lost his heart to Wall-san many eons ago – it’s a battle already lost, and I can only do so much to repair the damage.”

Kurogane reaches up and grabs the wandering hands, and ignores how Fai looks at him inquiringly. “I don’t think it’s legal for me to have sex with a madman.” 

Fai snorts. “I think you’re excused if you’re already mad yourself. Only a madman could _want_ to have sex with a madman.”

“If that were true, there wouldn’t be a law against it in the first place.”

“Not so!” Fai protests, and wiggles his hands free from Kurogane’s steely grasp. “Everybody’s a little mad, Kuro-boo; we just have laws detailing the various levels of the insane.”

“…That’s it.” Kurogane gives up. “I can’t understand a word of what you’re coming out with any more.”

“Too much blood to the wrong head,” his personal tormentor sagely announces, sliding his hands down one of Kurogane’s legs and taking off the man’s shoe. The other follows quickly after it, socks, pants, shirt and boxers too, all taken between distracting kisses quick fingers and dumped in a glorious heap on the floor. Fai, kneeling still-clothed between Kurogane’s spread thighs, has a predatory smile that’s all teeth again, and an exceedingly appreciative gleam in his eyes. “Not that I’m complaining.”

Kurogane grabs the other’s collar and yanks Fai to him, the blond falling forward with a _yelp._ “ _Shut up_ ,” Kurogane tells him firmly, and then crashes their mouths together so Fai can put better use to his tongue.

Fai doesn’t seem too upset by the arrangement; Kurogane is bare, and warm, and there’s plenty of skin to touch, and since Kurogane appears to be doing a good job of divesting him of his clothes as quickly as possible he’s free to let his hands roam, feeling the flex of the other’s muscles beneath tan skin.

Kurogane breaks the kiss as Fai loses his trousers, haphazardly flinging them to join the floor-heap. Fai takes the time to reach for his box – which Kurogane glances over at, just in time to belatedly register a) it’s condoms, and b) there also happens to be a bottle of lubricant inside, apparently thoughtfully placed there by the man busy grabbing a packet from beneath and dropping the rest of the box on a bedside cabinet. Although both actions are useful they distract Fai’s attention for far too long, so Kurogane grabs the man by the hips revenge for being hauled around going for dinner and pulls him back onto his lap, long legs and laughter that tangle into kisses, a slow-darkening hickey on Fai’s neck, and Kurogane’s hiss as one finger slides into him, then two, and he shifts back in an unconscious effort to ease the stretch. It’s a not-quite-properly-uncomfortable sensation he hasn’t felt it a while, the soft persistent rub _inside_ of him, but it’s not bad – it’s _definitely_ not bad -, although he really wishes that Fai’s lubricant wasn’t _strawberry-scented._ It’s the goddamn fruit. _Again._ Also, he has the sneaking suspicion that the lube has _sparkles_ , but Fai is doing his very best to be distracting and Kurogane can’t quite summon up the courage to look. There are things even his ego just can’t take.

“Hah…” Kurogane breathes and Fai twists his fingers – sharp, just _so -,_ and nothing in heaven or earth or _anybody’s_ bloody philosophy will make Kurogane admit to the noise he makes, though it makes Fai chuckle as he slips his fingers out and Kurogane growl in response.

“Puppy~,” Fai croons again, low and loving, but it trails off in a gasp as Kurogane cups his length, rolling on the condom and wrapping Fai’s still-slippery hand around it before covering it with his own palm, tugging soft, slow.

“What did I say about shutting up?” Fai’s eyes flutter half-shut, shadows on his cheekbones. The idiot could probably enchant an audience with his words and smile alone, no tricks required.

“Mm,” is Fai’s intelligent response, and Kurogane sits back further when Fai’s hand drops away to hold his hip instead, guiding the blond in.

It’s still a stretch, even after preparation, a not-quite burn at the base of Kurogane’s spine, but he spreads his legs wider, bends one knee as Fai pushes in, fine trembling in the muscles of the paler man’s arms in an effort to keep a slow pace. The second thrust is better, stronger, and Kurogane shifts his leg again to change the angle and feels sparks he makes that sound again on the third and the fourth and –

Kurogane has very little idea why he’s sleeping with this man. Fai chatters and sings and makes a nuisance of himself, drinks like a sponge and kisses like a storm and he’s _infuriating_. Kurogane barely knows him, but with a sashay and a suggestion Fai’s shadow is moving hard above him, driving in deeply with that Mona Lisa look on his face. Kurogane’s not usually the type to leap into these sort of things, so why with _this_ idiot _–_

Why, why, _why_ with Fai?

The world blurs a little around the edges and somewhere in his haze Kurogane knows he’s gone when Fai reaches between their bodies to touch him, irregular but faster, faster, slamming against that _perfect_ spot inside –

    

#

 

 _La petite mort:_ the little death.

Your heart stops for an instant, and this is forever.

 

#

 

Kurogane decides he quite likes ‘after that.’ Very much so, and Fai is warm and sleepy and _boneless_ draped over him, snuggling closer in his slumber even as Kurogane himself drifts away in the soft dark, goes to dreams.

 

#

 

Says Narcissus: _Emoriar, quam sit tibi copia nostri._

 _Sit tibi copia nostri:_ thus mourns Echo.

 

#

 

 _  
Dear Kurogane,   
_

_  
I It’s I’m sorry This isn’t working.   
_

Kurogane doesn’t get the note.

 

#

 

Kurogane wakes late Tuesday morning with the aches of one well-bedded, flat on his back amongst rumpled sheets with one arm over his eyes. The curtains are still closed so he instinctively rolls over to fall back asleep again, hands reaching out across the mattress’ expanse for the warmth that had wrapped so willingly around him the night before, but his fingers grasp only at the cool sheets.

He sits up, confused a little, and then he frowns.

(“I’m here until Tuesday.”)

All the bags, the boxes, Fai’s clothes…everything’s gone, and Fai with them. Kurogane’s clothes are neatly folded on a nearby chair, and there’s a brief handwritten note laid on top of them that’s terse, perfunctory, and uses no names.

 

#

 

You (ride off into the sunset and) live happily ever after with your one true love.

You don’t.

 

#

 

Try number one: _This is Fai’s number. Sorry, I’m busy right now; leave a message after the tone, and I’ll get back to you soon._

…

Try number two: _This is Fai’s number. Sorry, I’m busy right now; leave a message after the tone, and I’ll get back to you soon._

…

Try number five: _This is Fai’s number. Sorry, I’m busy right now; leave a message after the tone, and I’ll get back to you soon._

…

Try number eight: _We sorry, the number you have dialled is not available at this time. The customer is not available, or has travelled outside the coverage area. Please try your call again later._

…

There aren’t any more tries after that.

 

#

 

Says Narcissus: _May I die before I give you power over me._

 _I give you power over me:_ thus mourns Echo.

 

#

 

Kurogane looks he tells himself he doesn’t for Fai despite himself, asking at the club and the theatre, but getting little to no useful responses. Fai had come and gone; they’d liked him while he’d been there – he was fun and friendly, and they’d tried to keep contact, but he was just that sort of man, maybe. Distant. Kurogane thanks them for their time as politely as he can, and leaves.

Fai was – _is_ – distant, definitely. And he’s also a magician.

It’s the oldest trick in the book: the disappearing act.


	2. The show goes on

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Modern AU. Fai’s a conjurer, a performer (magician), and Kurogane falls for his tricks.

The show goes on, and on and on, before the curtains fall, and before each entertainer takes their bows they’ve got to give their all. You must forgive my transgressions, dears, because I’ve always done my best – you may abhor my acting but you’ll all agree I’ve still got zest. Everything is for the performance: my props, my words, my cue. And if you scoff and point fingers – it’s fine. I lie to myself too.

 

#

 

Some equations for you:

Five months = almost twenty-two weeks = one hundred and fifty-three days = three thousand, six hundred and seventy-two hours = two hundred and twenty thousand, three hundred and twenty minutes = thirteen million, two hundred and nineteen thousand, and two hundred seconds.

Five months = eight phone-calls to someone who doesn’t answer = brooding = two concerned parents = more phone-calls = family get-togethers = three trips to the nightclub = seventy-two nights out = two dates with people met = a short relationship that lasts three weeks = an endless amount of swearing at life, the universe and everything = lots and _lots_ of alcohol.

Five months = getting over it. There isn’t even an ‘it’ anymore.

…

All of this is approximate, of course.

 

#

 

 _The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there._

                - Leslie Poles Hartley

 

#

 

It’s a fact of life that the Daidoujis have a much bigger house than Kurogane does. Kendappa and Tomoyo and Souma might as well count too considering the amount of nights she stays with her girlfriend still live with their mother, Sonomi, Kurogane’s aunt, at the woman’s insistence – not that it can really count as living _with_ her considering Sonomi’s out of town (or the country) on business more often than not -, and they have a big place between them, to match Sonomi and Kendappa’s interestingly-sized paycheques. Sonomi heads the company; Kendappa works for her mother high up in one of the departments; Tomoyo does freelance work now and then and Kurogane stays well, _well_ out of it all because the last time his own mother had talked him into helping his aunt for one weekend he’d been stuck doing a mountain of paperwork. He’d dreamt about seas of fine print for _months_ after that.     

But yes. The Daidoujis have a bigger house – and as a result, a much bigger basement. That Kendappa had commandeered a long time ago, and turned into a personal gym, and sparring rooms. Both she and Souma use them frequently, and, knowing Kurogane, they’d offered him the place to use as he liked as well, with the condition that if he’s planning to spar with anyone, it had better be them.

Kurogane _likes_ the Daidoujis’ basement.

Kurogane doesn’t quite like so much having to brave the Daidoujis’ corridor to get _to_ the basement – the long, often Tomoyo-and-her-friend infested corridor.

“Good afternoon.”

Kurogane twitches, caught just on the threshold of the basement’s steps and freedom, and turns back to face his little cousin. Tomoyo smiles at him, innocent, and stirs the ice cubes in the drink she’s holding with a red straw. Kurogane swears the girl _watches_ for him coming. “Tomoyo.”

“I _thought_ I heard you come in, Kurogane,” she has servants, don’t they _tell_ her these things? The ice cubes clink against the glass they’re in. “My sister’s not in from work yet.”

“I came to practise some _kata_ beforehand.” Kurogane tries not to shift from foot to foot; he doesn’t quite know why, but Tomoyo reminds him far too much of his mother sometimes. It’s the look on her face, probably – the one that is somehow loving and exasperated and amused all at once, with just a dash of mischief at the corner of the mouth.

“Would you like some lemonade first?” She pads forward to lay a hand on his arm, smiling up at him with all the charm she can muster. It’s quite an accountable amount – both Kurogane and Kendappa have taken it upon themselves to deal with the string of admirers Tomoyo has gained at her school with various threat tactics when they occasionally pick her up. (It’s backfired on them both a little – some of the admirers have switched over to _them_ and Tomoyo’s forbidden Kurogane from beating up the snot-nosed twit that decided to call him ‘pretty’ to his face.) “Sakura and I were making some before. Have you met Sakura yet?”

No. No, he hasn’t met Sakura he doesn’t want to, Tomoyo’s friends are almost as scary as she is and no, he doesn’t want lemonade, but Tomoyo’s not waiting for an answer from him, already tugging on his wrist to lead him through to the kitchen. And he _could_ dig his heels in and refuse her, but…well…

“I don’t like sweet crap,” Kurogane grumbles, but Tomoyo isn’t listening as she pushes open the room’s door. “Tomoyo -”

There’s a girl already in the kitchen, sitting at the table with a drink matching the one Tomoyo’s still carrying, watching the television in the corner. She looks over when her friend comes in, and then up at Kurogane.

And up.

And up.

And _up._ Gods, she’s tiny.

And then quietly ‘ _eeps’._

Good. She’s an intelligent one.

“Kurogane, this is Sakura, my friend.” Tomoyo goes to stand beside the frozen girl at the table. ‘Sakura’ is like a gazelle: all long-limbed and slim, with chestnut hair and huge doe eyes of a startling green. It’s a pretty combination, but it only emphasises the deer-in-headlights look she’s adopted. “Sakura,” Tomoyo nods a head towards Kurogane, “that’s Kurogane, my cousin.”

Sakura quickly bows her head. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Hn,” says Kurogane, and goes to the fridge to investigate what he can get to drink from there. He might as well, considering Tomoyo’s dragged him into the kitchen.

Tomoyo protests, of course – she’s offered him lemonade and he’s snubbing it, but Kurogane just grabs some water and heads back out of the room, again, grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl on his way past. Tomoyo sighs behind him; Kurogane hears it before the door swings shut.

Kendappa arrives home about half an hour later and she goes down to spar in the basement with Kurogane – they fight for a while, and then call a ten minute break for her to get a drink of her own, and for Kurogane to refill her bottle. Sakura’s leaving as they go upstairs; her brother’s come to pick her up, dark-eyed and dark-haired, and Tomoyo’s waving profusely from the door. Kendappa snorts as she goes past, but continues on her way to the kitchen and hops up onto the counter, taking a long drink from the bottle she’s swiped from the fridge.

Kurogane looks at her.

“Tomoyo likes her,” is all Kendappa says, and it’s a tribute to how long Kurogane’s known his littlest cousin that it’s only half a beat before he winces.

 

#

 

There’s a street. It doesn’t matter where it really is (nowhere), but you see it in your dreams, haunted by the pretty one all in white (no angel, I assure you). He sneaks in like a sunbeam with a halo around his head, and smashes your precious watch (steals your time) before pulling it out again from under a cloth (red as blood) as good as new. There’s not a scratch on it and he’s proud – but the smile flickers (out like a light) when you lean in:

 _‘Do you fix broken hearts as well?’_

 

#

 

We don’t do melodrama here.

 

#

 

Sakura becomes an almost permanent fixture at the Daidoujis’. Like a piece of the furniture, only squeakier, and more inclined to flail. Kurogane grows used to walking past her when he frequents his cousins’ home, and Sakura slowly becomes used to his presence. They don’t particularly speak to one another very much, but she smiles when she sees him and will offer him something to eat or drink if she’s making something for herself and Tomoyo, and says goodbye if he leaves the house before she does. Kurogane usually grunts something back at her Tomoyo glares if he doesn’t, and apparently that makes her happy, if the way her smile grows is any indication. She’s a good kid; Tomoyo likes her, and anything that distracts Tomoyo is good for Kurogane and the world at large. So, in his abstract way, Kurogane approves and likes Sakura.

Later, he’ll regret that.

“Kurogane,” Tomoyo calls down the stairs at him one day from the first floor, when his sparring for the day is done and he’s padding about towelling dry his hair. He’d had a shower in the basement bathroom and changed into the loose-fitting clothes he left at his cousins’ for that purpose. Kendappa’s busy following his example after swanning off to her bedroom on the upper levels; the water’s still running somewhere in the house. “Can you get the door? Sakura’s doing my hair and I can’t move.”

Kurogane grouches – he hadn’t even heard the front door from downstairs, and where the _hell_ are the house servants? – but he goes upstairs as asked, Tomoyo smiles knowingly at him as he passes the room where Sakura’s laboriously putting her hair into hundreds of tiny braids hanging the towel around his neck and reaching to open the door with one hand.

There’s a man there on the other side – in jeans, jacket, dangling car keys absently from one finger as he looks off to the distance. He glances at Kurogane when he hears the door open – the car keys stop swinging, blue eyes widen, and lips half part oh god Kurogane can remember kissing those –

Fai stares. _“Puppy?”_

 

#

 

 **Déjà vu (n.)**

1903, French, lit. "already seen." The phenomenon also is known as _promnesia_. Similar phenomena are _déjà entendu_ "already heard" (of music, etc.), 1965; and _déjà lu_ "already read."

 

#

 

Kurogane shuts the door in his face.

 

#

 

 _And today’s weather: strong winds and rain; likely to storm._

What the hell is _he_ doing here?

 _Flood warnings for low-lying areas are in place._

No, really.

 

#

 

“You really do enjoy trying my patience, don’t you.”

“I think the fact Kuro-pui didn’t even have to phrase that as a true question really says it all, don’t you?”

 

#

 

It’s awkward. Of _course_ it’s awkward, as Kurogane’s scowling and Fai’s standing and Tomoyo’s braids are falling out and Sakura just looks confused. Kendappa’s sitting, amused at the spectacle, on the stairs combing through her shower-wet hair, apparently having heard the front door’s _slam_ from the depths of her own room. Not that Kurogane particularly cares – he brushes past and heads for the kitchen haven as Tomoyo attempts to apologise for her cousin’s bad behaviour, Fai the idiot smiling and trying to ease the flow and not look at Kurogane all at the same time. Of all things, he’d remembered _‘puppy.’_

Kendappa trails Kurogane in, leans back against the nearest counter and reaches for the fruit. She finds a punnet of blueberries, opens them up to pick out a plump one on top. “You’ve always had such a way with people.” Kurogane growls at her. She laughs at him. “What’d he do – say ‘good afternoon’ a little too enthusiastically?”

“It’s none of your business,” Kurogane snaps back at her, and snatches the punnet away from his cousin’s fingertips when she smiles indulgently at him – although not before Kendappa’s got a few more berries in her hand. “Go away; you’re dripping on the floor.”

“Very well,” a push upright and Kendappa heads for the door, but she’s all but smirking as she glances back over her shoulder, “though you know, Kurogane, Tomoyo would sooner stop you coming here than upset the brother of her friend.”

She _wouldn’t._

Wait.

“Brother.”

Kendappa looks blank. “…Yes?”

Kurogane frowns. “No.”

 _“Yes,”_ his cousin repeats a little more firmly.

“No,” Kurogane repeats, adamant. “I _met_ her brother – he was taller, had dark hair, and was _sane.”_

Kendappa snorts somewhat inelegantly, and pops another (the last) blueberry into her mouth that she’s holding. “That’s the younger one. Amazingly enough, Kurogane, you know it’s not impossible to have more than one sibling?”

“I’d rather _not_ know,” he retorts. God, why had no-one told him? “Cousins are bad enough.”

 

#

 

 _Why? Kurogane asks, holding fast to the other man’s arm. Why didn’t you call?_

 _Oh, Fai replies, and blinks his eyes slowly, like he’s just waking up from a dream. I dropped my phone in a lake._

 

#

 

He’s like an infection, the plague, because it starts off with a meeting (it always does) and then he’s _everywhere,_ and you hate it – you hate it, you do (liar) and it’s gagging on sugar all the way as he smiles and he laughs and you choke out civility (of a sort).

He stops you, because to a nowhere man five months is but a day and _oh,_ you agree when he tugs you down to meet his kisses (the world can end tomorrow) and he whispers sweet nothings that wipe wounded egos away –

(No.)

He walks past you (hushabye honey) and you don’t know which of you is the invisible ghost.

 

#

 

Kurogane’s workmates like listening to the radio.

 _Cause every little thing he does is magic_

 _Every thing he does just turns me on –_

Kurogane does not.

 _Even though my life before was tragic_

 _Now I know my love for him goes on…_

Kurogane’s workmates look up at each other when Kurogane storms out of the room.

(“Do you think his girlfriend stopped sending him pictures?”

“…Get back to work.”)

 

#

 

‘Kuro-rin’ Fai calls him for the fourth time or the eight or the twentieth time in half an hour when he picks up Sakura and he’s swinging by the Daidoujis a lot more than Touya is now, and Kurogane’s noticed but doesn’t know what to think of it but he will _not_ by chased out and Kurogane tunes out everything else that comes out of the idiot’s mouth, bristling up at the _ridiculous_ nickname. Tomoyo thinks they’re cute; Sakura wavers every time her brother it’s confirmed, damn him comes out with one, but Kurogane thinks – Kurogane thinks –

(“Admit I’m charming yet, Kuro-sama?”)

It’s much easier to think about things from a roundabout perspective.

Sakura has two older brothers – Touya and Fai, the latter of whom is the eldest. Her last name is Kinomoto, but Fai’s is Fluorite – why, nobody asks; nobody explains, and Fai insists he be called ‘Fai’ anyway, so it doesn’t even come up in conversation. Her father is recently dead – it’s been three months, but ‘recent’ can be a long time for the grieving – and her mother died when she was very young. Sakura can’t remember her face, but she has photographs. Underage by a few years, she’s in Touya’s guardianship – again, why that is isn’t mentioned by any of the family – and Fai’s come back to the city; he’d lived far away, for his work. But since Touya works too, and both her siblings seem to have various complexes they’re infectious over her about a mile high, Fai’s moved back to an apartment closer by theirs, because everyone loves Sakura.

This is what Kurogane overhears Tomoyo telling her sister and Souma, and he never lets on about it, because he’s not going to ask. Tomoyo probably knows he’s overheard anyway – but that’s their secret, and they’re each stubborn in their own way. She just smiles whilst she’s digging her heels in, that’s all.

Fai smiles nearly all the time. It annoys Kurogane, because the smiles never seem to reach the idiot’s blue eyes, and the teasing that goes with them rings hollow when Fai attempts to flirt. He looks the same, generally, as he’d done that night in the bar, that one week Kurogane had known him five months ago, but there’s a sadness to it all that Kurogane just wishes the other would acknowledge. And then he can get out of Kurogane’s face.

‘Kuro-rin’ Fai calls him, once more, with that _smile_ on his face as if nothing was changed or moved or wrecked by an empty hotel room one Tuesday morning five months ago.

So Kurogane grabs his arm and waylays him one late summer afternoon, as Tomoyo’s pulled outside by Sakura’s presence, happily talking by the idiot’s car. Out of sight, out of mind, and this is a conversation that’s been far too long in coming.

“Kuro-tan,” Fai says with his smile, and he tries to pull his arm away but Kurogane only tightens his grip. Fai’s expression flickers into a mild grimace, and he lowers his voice. But he still tries to pull. “Kuro-tan, let go.”

Kurogane yanks him back harder, and Fai’s arm feels slight in his grasp, warm skin and bone under the thin cloth of his shirt. He tightens his grip further until Fai finally takes the hint and falls still, but his gaze keeps sliding away from Kurogane’s face, just like it’s done since he stood on the doorstep, now weeks ago.

“Kuro-k-”

“You don’t have the right to call me that.”

It’s a calm cut-off of a reply – too calm for Kurogane -, and that’s what sticks the most, what makes Fai falter and the words fall dead between them, because it’s cold and clear and _very_ concise. And Fai glances up, just for a breath, and meets a stony red gaze, and looks away again just as quickly, still stuttering in the quiet.

Outside, they can still hear Tomoyo and Sakura talking.

“My name is Kurogane.”

Inside, Kurogane is done.

He lets go of Fai.

 

#

 

 **Power (n.)**

c.1300, from Anglo-Fr. _pouair,_ O.Fr. _povoir,_ noun use of the infinitive in O.Fr., "to be able," earlier _podir_ (842), from V.L. _*potere,_ from L. _potis_ "powerful" (see **_potent_** ). The verb meaning "to supply with power" is recorded from 1898. Phrase _the powers that be_ is from Rom. xiii.1. As a statement wishing good luck, _more power to (someone)_ is recorded from 1842.

 

#

 

“…I apologise. It won’t happen again.”

Now which of you feels smallest? Don’t look in a mirror, honey; it’s easy to get lost at three inches high.

 

#

 

The _other_ one picks up the girl for a long time after that (chase the moonlight, he’s gone), younger and darker and more bitter to the missing mercury-man’s sweet. And oh, oh, oh, your heart beats _so,_ and it’s needlepricked all over (this is guilt) for your convenience, pincushion dear.

You don’t feel anything about it.

You _tell_ yourself you don’t feel anything about it.

You feel _everything_ about it.

(Une, deux, trois, mon chou, quel est-ce?)

Silly boy.

 

#

 

It’s one thing to return general courtesy to someone who makes their home open to you. It’s quite _another_ thing to open your front door and find that your little cousin is, unprompted, having a picnic on your front lawn with her best friend, her best friend’s older (oldest) brother, and a small crowd of her family’s black-clad servants/bodyguards so they _do_ actuallyexist crowding around serving them cups of English tea and cucumber and ham sandwiches with the crusts sliced off.

Kurogane, quite rightly, stands in his doorway and stares at the scene. It’s so _absurd –_ and so _Tomoyo_ all at the same time – that he’s almost convinced himself it’s a hallucination, a mirage caused by the hot sun overhead beating down on his garden.

Tomoyo, of course, has to go and ruin it by noticing him all but gaping at the display, looking up at him from under her sunhat and smiling. The servants around her immediately stand to attention, turning on Kurogane with their trays of sandwiches, miniature pies, and – for the love of- are those _cupcakes?_

“Kurogane, would you like something to eat?” Tomoyo motions to one of the servants in particular, one of the ones bearing sandwiches, and the woman moves closer to Kurogane to show him the food. “I specifically asked for unbuttered bread for you, since I know how dairy disagrees with you.”

Kurogane waves the food away, and the servant obediently moves back to Tomoyo’s side, offering the tray to Fai and Sakura instead. “What are you doing here?”

“Having a picnic,” Tomoyo replies demurely, and picks up the teapot beside her to refill Sakura’s cup. “I should think it’s quite obvious.”

“ _Why_ are you having a picnic here?”

“Because Fai drove us over here.” Tomoyo offers the teapot to the blond in question sitting beside her – but Fai shakes his head minutely, his eyes hidden from the world by beetle-black sunglasses, as dark as the ones Tomoyo’s guards are sporting. As a mask, it’s terribly crude. Tomoyo fills up her own teacup instead. “He kindly offered to drive Sakura and I over here when he found out we were planning on coming over to take you out on your day off – it’s on his way to work. But of course, if Fai were to have left immediately after dropping us off he would have been terribly early for his job, and it would have been _rude_ to be such an inconvenience after his kindness, so we decided to have lunch before setting off any further.”

“Lunch,” Kurogane says disbelievingly, looking at the elaborate set-up on his lawn. Trust Tomoyo to go overboard even with the simplest of things.

“Yes,” his cousin repeats, “lunch. Are you sure you don’t want a sandwich, Kurogane? I ordered them to be brought over from home.” 

“They’re very nice,” Sakura pipes up helpfully, clutching her teacup to her a little more closely than necessary, a physical shield against the scowl Kurogane is sporting. Her brother is unusually silent.

“…I might have one later.” Kurogane tries to ignore the way Sakura brightens a little at his comment, the way Fai tips his head slightly to the side, and instead focuses on his cousin. “I’ve got some errands to run.”

“Is it anything we can help you with?”

Kurogane shakes his head at the offer from Tomoyo. He could be done in five minutes if she’d set her servants to do his tasks – but he prefers to do it himself, to know it’s done. Besides, if he let the servants do it he’d have to hang back in the garden, and deal with all the issues there. “I’ll be back in a little while.”

He leaves, and goes to do his tasks, and when he returns it’s at least an hour later and Fai’s preparing to go he’s in no hurry to get to his job, is he?, the two girls flanking him at the gate. They haven’t seen Kurogane – though Tomoyo’s bodyguards have and if they haven’t Kurogane would have their jobs – so he hangs back, watching the smiling trio.

Fai’s sunglasses are finally off, tucked over the collar of his shirt, and the man himself is teasing his sister, showing Sakura and Tomoyo a magic trick. He shares out four coins between the girls, two each, but every time they close their hands around them Tomoyo somehow ends up with only one, and Sakura three. Sakura keeps apologising – as if it’s her fault! – and her two companions laugh as she goes pink.

“Mr. Kurogane!” It’s in-between her frantic ‘sorry!’s that Sakura notices Kurogane standing watching them, flailing somewhat at having someone else to watch her embarrassment. Tomoyo and Fai swivel around to look at him as well. “You’re back!”

“…I should be going.” Sakura pauses in her greeting of the slowly approaching Kurogane when her brother speaks, glancing curiously back over his shoulder at Fai’s somewhat more-solemn tone. He smiles for her though, brilliantly bright. Another lie. “I have to get to the hospital, remember?”

“I’m sure they’ll love your show.” Tomoyo’s words to the blond are confident as Sakura hugs the man goodbye, Fai smiling his thanks and bowing his head to the other girl courteously in reply.

There’s a pause as Fai moves to go out the garden gate and Kurogane to go in – they meet eyes for a second and then Fai steps back, breaking the lock. It’s Kurogane’s home, after all.

Kurogane goes in, nods his head curtly in acknowledgement of the other’s concession – but then Fai mimics him, and adds a quietly flat ‘Kurogane’ onto the end of it. Kurogane turns around to look at the blond, but Fai is already out the gate and waving a smiling goodbye to his sister and Tomoyo, and whatever mood the idiot is in is well hidden behind his usual liar’s façade.

 

#

 

Kurogane’s workmates like listening to the radio.

 _Cold as ice_

 _You know that you are_

Kurogane does not.

 _(“Switch that damn thing off!”_

“Kurogane…?”)

 _Cold as ice_

(“I can’t think. Switch it _off_ or I’m throwing it out of the window.”

“But -”

 _“Switch it off.”)_

 _You’re as cold_

 _As ice to me…_

*click*

(“There, it’s off. Jeez…”)

 

#

 

 _For my will is as strong as yours, my kingdom as great… You have no power over me._

\- Labyrinth

 

#

 

 **Denial** **(n.)**

1520s; see **_deny_** \+ **_-al_** (2). Replaced earlier _denyance_ (mid-15c.). Meaning "unconscious suppression of painful or embarrassing feelings" first attested 1914 in A.A. Brill's translation of Freud's "Psychopathology of Everyday Life"; phrase _in denial_ popularized 1980s.

 

#

 

 _Nosy, aren’t we Kurogane? Fai leans against the kitchen table lazily, using it as a barrier against the man standing like a dark storm cloud on the other side. Fai can almost see the lightning flickering; Kurogane has it hovering around him perpetually. Especially for someone who enjoys brushing past me more often than not. I guess puppies really_ do _bear grudges._

 _Kurogane glares at him. The sound of his own name still sounds strange from Fai’s lips._

 _Fai continues, breezy. You know, I knew you for a week. That’s a very long time for a one night stand._

 _Do you give ridiculous nicknames to_ all _the people you sleep with? Kurogane moves a step closer to the table._

 _Fai’s lips thin, taking the jab, and the smile is wiped off of his face. Kurogane is glad, though it looks like Fai’s about to snap something back at him – but the blond only breathes out, breathes in, and keeps a civil politeness._

 _I’m a Scorpio, Fai says, clipped and clear. I was born in Cannes, and raised in Augsburg. I don’t know my blood type, and I hate snakes._

 _Kurogane looks at him. That’s the exact opposite of most of the stuff you told me when we first met._

 _Fai looks back at him. And_ smiles.

 

#

 

It’s Tomoyo as ever who ‘volunteers’ Kurogane for grunt-work, helping Fai bring the last of his furniture into his apartment. She mentions he’s helping in the middle of a conversation with Sakura, and before Kurogane can protest Sakura’s already thanking him profusely, smiling, and it’s just –

It’s just easier to go along with things. Tomoyo will get her comeuppance one day.

And so it is, a few days later, he’s hauling boxes up to Fai’s new home from the back of Touya Kinomoto’s van apparently, it’s been borrowed from work, Souma at his side. The apartment’s on the floor second from the top, and the lift’s currently broke, so they’re taking the stairs – Kurogane with clanking and complaints, laden down with a box of kitchenware, Souma somewhat more stoic and armed with a box marked ‘random.’ Kurogane tries not to think what could be considered _random_ by Fai’s asinine standards and listens to Souma talking instead – and then has to quell an irrational flare of resentful pique inside of him when she starts talking about how Fai is seemingly leasing the apartment from a good friend of his. How the hell _Souma_ knows more about the situation than Kurogane does is something Kurogane sees fit to inwardly grumble about , but –

Kendappa is, as expected, nowhere to be found that day. Kurogane eventually reaches the apartment and dumps down the box he’s carrying for Tomoyo and Sakura to help Fai sort through, passing a remark to that effect. Of course, Kendappa will be _working,_ so –

“Actually,” Tomoyo absently interrupts, “no. She’s gone to pick mother up from the airport.”

“…She’s back?” Oh God – _Sonomi._

Tomoyo smiles – sweet, as though she has no idea that she knows her cousin’s recoiling at the mention of his aunt returning to harass him. “That’s right.”

Kurogane has even more to whine about from that point onwards. Fai, thankfully, stays mostly of his way, putting things away, making tea, coffee –

“I don’t know why you keep this thing.” Touya makes sure to get a few good grumbles in of his own when he hefts a black coffee percolator up the stairs to his brother’s apartment, gratefully relieving himself of his burden in the kitchen. “You don’t even _drink_ coffee.”

“But my guests quite often do,” Fai reminds him – it sounds like an old argument so Kurogane lets the two siblings talk, heading back to get another load from the van.

There’s plenty more trotting up and down to do – the mound in the van seems never-ending how could one person accumulate so much junk?, so it’s with great surprise Kurogane is eventually handed a _light_ box to haul up the stairs, blinking a little dumbfoundedly when Touya remarks that there isn’t much left. This, like the others, he takes upstairs to inquire of Tomoyo where he should put it, only to get the _special_ look she has reserved for him when she thinks he’s being ‘silly.’ Far too many members of his family have their own take of that look. It’s somewhat insulting.

“It’s marked ‘ _bedroom,’_ Kurogane.”

Kurogane frowns at his cousin, and defends his questioning. “You’ve made me dump other ‘bedroom’ boxes through here.”

“No,” Tomoyo corrects him, and goes back to neatly arranging crockery in the box in front of her. “Those said bedroom _wardrobe.”_

“…Right.” Kurogane gives in and leaves the girl to whatever she’s doing, taking his box through the door to the apartment’s sole bedroom. (There’s another room that _could_ have been a bedroom, but Fai’s crammed it full of ‘magical’ junk and the one time Kurogane had carried a box through there he’d been poked in the face by a floppy wand. Souma or Touya had carried the rest of the boxes through there, after that.)

Fai’s bedroom is, surprisingly, possibly the neatest room in the whole apartment – probably because the man had needed most of his personal things sorted before his other furniture. There aren’t a great many boxes about the place – but _still_ Kurogane manages to find one in an inconvenient place after he sets his load down, stumbling slightly over a smaller tub of photographs lying on the floor. Kurogane rights himself but the tub topples, and all the photographs spill out in a colourful mess, past memories and glossy faces.

Kurogane crouches down, to put the photographs away again, but couldn’t help but look at the images in his hands as he did so. Fai’s face was evident in a few of them, younger than he was now, his hair a little shorter, his smile a little brighter. Beside him sat, danced and drank strangers, unknown entities laughing as Fai draped himself on them, holding the man close, making silly faces beside him. Sakura flashed up quite a few times, sometimes blushing, sometimes yelling, sometimes not even noticing the camera at all, too busy stomping on Touya’s foot to care about a camera flash. In some of the photos she’s a little green-eyed girl tinier than she is already, blowing out four candles on a birthday cake while Touya lounges in the background trying to hide the fond look in his eyes.

There aren’t any photos of Fai as a little boy, and there aren’t any baby photos of any of the siblings. It almost seems surprising, judging by the apparently sentimental nature of the collection; Fai had struck Kurogane as the sort of idiot who’d take pictures of their newborn siblings and post up photos _everywhere,_ coating them in glitter and pointing to them with neon arrows proclaiming: ‘my new little sister!!!’

…So maybe the blond hadn’t been _born_ an idiot. Maybe.

Fai’s life may have been spilled out on the floor for all to see, but it doesn’t mean Kurogane can understand any of it. The last few photographs Kurogane picks up to put away are a mystery. The first – a smiling brown-haired man with glasses, looking up from a book. The second – two boys, both dark-haired, one in glasses and one stoic, holding baby rabbits, one white and one black. The third – a pyramid of glass, all the panes gleaming in the afternoon sunlight, with a beautiful red-haired woman standing before it waving at the camera. The fourth – the same woman again, this time with a blonde at her side, both of them wearing figure-hugging dresses and glancing back over their shoulders at the camera. There are stars in the background and the glow of a building’s lights on their skin and faces, caught leaving a building on a night out.

It takes Kurogane a minute or two to realise that the blonde woman in the photograph is actually Fai.

The surprise is a dull, creeping thing Fai might not have been _born_ an idiot but he’s certainly cultivated his talents well over the years, and Kurogane idly studies the picture in his hands as he works the idea through, wondering, once more, about the sanity of the magician. The dress the idiot had been wearing was slinky and backless and shouldn’t have looked half as good on a man as it did on Fai, but somehow the cloth had clung in the right places in the half-light and the shimmer-black-blue colour looked gorgeous with Fai’s snow-white skin. Kurogane wonders, for a moment, whether the idiot had padded the front as well – and then mentally smacks himself, dropping that thought before its craziness can carry him any further. (The photograph can’t answer him, anyway. It tells him a lot of things and a lot of nothing all at once.)

“That’s Karen and me,” a voice says over Kurogane’s shoulder, and Kurogane only _just_ resiststhe temptation to jump and yell about _goddamned idiots_ sneaking up on him from behind it would reflect badly on him, anyway. He settles, instead, for slowly turning his head so he can _glare_ at Fai, who’s half-bent behind him and looking at the picture in Kurogane’s hands. “On our trip to Paris.”

“Hn,” Kurogane says noncommittally, and dumps the picture back in its tub, quickly standing. He dislikes being towered over, too used to his own height.

“She used to be my assistant,” Fai ventures, and straightens as well. He moves around Kurogane and picks the tub up off of the floor, holding it to his chest, his unreadable heart in his hands.  “There’s coffee in the kitchen if you want it.” And he walks off, taking his photographs with him.   

 

#

 

 _One day, a man named Youou walks back-stage to see a magician called Yuui. Yuui’s busy back there of course, but he looks up to see Youou standing in the doorway of his dressing room._

 _“Can I help you?”_

 _Youou considers for a moment. “…No,” he says eventually. And then he walks away._

 

#

 

“We’re always bumping into one another, Kuro-chan. It must be fate~!”

“No.”

“No?”

“It’s hell.”

 

#

 

You’d like to think he’s easy to forget, because he’s just another face (nowhere man) in the crowded racetrack, ballroom, battle that’s your life. Your last stand, the last push, the break for the finish line when really you know (oh, how you know) that you’re standing hiding behind the vase in the corner afraid he’ll glance in your direction too long, come over and pull you out into the fray (confusion) once more with his hand and his smile and (forget-me-not) gaze. And then – and then – and _then –_

You dream about him, in the darkness behind your eyes, and you don’t lie to yourself there. (What’s even better – there, he doesn’t lie to you too.)

 

#

 

 _Why_ did _he wear that dress? Kurogane asks Touya in the future one day, when they’re mellow, and waiting on Sakura once more._

 _Touya shrugs, eloquent. He said he lost a bet._

 

#

 

“Fai’s always been magic,” Sakura says, one day, standing on the doorstep of Tomoyo’s home and waving as Fai pulls away down the driveway, heading for work. Kurogane, who had opened the door to her, only grunts, but the girl takes this as encouragement to elaborate. “He knew all these tricks, even before I first met him, and he’d show me them again and again and again when I asked. He gives all his magic away, because he says he likes making people smile. I just wish -” Sakura falters, and Kurogane glances at her, one eyebrow raised. Sakura raises her chin, almost defiantly, and makes her declaration. “I wish he’d keep some magic for himself.”

 

#

 

(Didn’t you know? Didn’t you know? _Oh_ , didn’t you know?)

((Know what? _Oh_ , I know nothing.))

(That’s because you live under a rock. And you lie to yourself.)

((So we’re hypocrites. This isn’t anything new.))

 

#

 

 _A long, long time ago there was a beautiful princess who slept an enchanted sleep in a castle surrounded by a forest of thorns. She’d been dreaming for a very,_ very _long time, waiting for the brave prince to come rescue her, and wake her with True Love’s Kiss, as had been foretold._

(…You’ve _got_ to be kidding me.)

 _Shush. Now, the prince rode by one day, and saw the forest. Not knowing what lay within it, however, he did the very sensible thing, and rode around the forest so as to avoid getting caught in the thorns. He was a busy man, and had no time for fairytales._

 _A few years later, he settled down with a sweet princess from a distant land that his parents arranged for him to wed, and had his children by her. He grew older with her, inheriting the throne from his parents and becoming King. When he died, many years later, he left the crown to his own eldest child. He never did even wonder about the forest of thorns ever again._

 _The princess asleep in the castle never woke up._

(…)

 _…_

(…Are you going to continue, or do I have to hit you?)

 _…But, Kurogane, aren’t you the one who’s always telling me to shut i-_ ow!

 _(Idiot_. Then again, it works. An idiot, telling an idiot’s tale.)

 _Kur-_

(Shut up. It _is_ an idiot’s tale, full of stupidity. What kind of ruler leaves so much potentially arable land choked up by fucking _weeds_? If he’s a kingdom to rule he’s wasting a portion of it – he’s got no business sense -, and if he doesn’t care to know what’s in every corner of his kingdom to begin with he’s got no other type of sense, either _. Anything_ can hide in a forest, whether it’s made up of thorns or not.)

 _A man is not obligated to poke at every scrap of anything that waltzes under his nose, Kurogane. Haven’t you heard that curiosity killed the cat? Not everyone is as adventurous as you._

(Some _are –_ and that’s enough. Maybe the idiot king doesn’t cut down the weeds; maybe _nobody_ cuts down those weeds for years and years and years, but eventually someone’s going to need all that wasted land – to stick a farm on, a village, a business empire even. It doesn’t matter. Someone’s going to look at that land and realise they can use it, wonder if there’d anything worth _using_ in all those weeds - because, if nothing else, everybody’s a little curious, a little adventurous -, and they’ll come along, and they’ll cut them down, and they’ll _find_ that stupid castle, comatose princess included.)

 _…_

(…So there’ll be a wait, yeah. Big deal. There are plenty of idiots out there in the world – you’re a pretty good example for that. Someone with a brain in their head’ll come along eventually, and _somebody’s_ dragging that princess out of her dreams, and right back into reality.)

 _But_ -

(Shut up.)

 _That’s not –_

(I _said_ shut up.)

 _But_ Kurog-

(Shut. _Up_. You’re not allowed to tell stories anymore.)

 

#

 

[…]

\- Youou, it’s been a while since we saw you last. Is it so terrible to ask to see our only child once every few months?

\- You _did_ see me.

\- Once. For your father’s birthday.

\- But you _did_ see me.

\- _Youou…_ I swear Sonomi sees more of you than I do, and she’s out of the country more often than not.

\- Have you _seen_ how many weapons she has in her basement? Father would love it.

\- So offer to do some training with him some time. I’m sure your father would love _that_ too.

\- …I’ll ask.

\- Just don’t kill each other.

\- Yes, mother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dictionary definitions are adapted from the Online Etymology Dictionary (<http://www.etymonline.com/index.php>). The songs used in this chapter are _Every Little Thing (He Does Is Magic)_ by M.Y.M.P, and _Cold as Ice,_ by M.O.P. The ‘fairytale’ criticised is a sort-of-Sleeping-Beauty. Authors of direct quotes are named in the narrative.

**Author's Note:**

> Latin is taken from Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_ (Book III); the translation I found online. Dictionary definitions are from Ask Oxford (<http://www.askoxford.com/?view=uk>) and the Online Etymology Dictionary (<http://www.etymonline.com/index.php>). The song Fai is singing is _Magic,_ by Pilot.


End file.
